In this Adobe Acrobat vs PDFelement comparison, I will show you the key differences between these two PDF editors. I will compare PDFelement to Adobe Acrobat based on features, pricing, my experience, user interfaces, and pros and cons. I spent numerous hours with both PDF editors, and I am here to share the benefits and limitations of each tool to ensure you make the right choice.
These are the key points that I explored during the Adobe Acrobat vs PDFelement clash:
- PDFelement is significantly cheaper than Adobe Acrobat.
- PDFelement has better AI tools than Adobe Acrobat.
- Adobe Acrobat is a slower PDF solution than PDFelement.
- Adobe Acrobat has slightly more advanced PDF editing features.
Now, let’s dive into the side-by-side comparison of Adobe Acrobat vs PDFelement!
Key differences between Adobe Acrobat and PDfelement
Here is a short overview of the key differences I found in the Adobe Acrobat vs PDFelement showdown:
Comparison: Adobe Acrobat vs PDFelement
First, I will show you both PDF readers’ features one by one. Second, I will guide you through my experience with them and their pricing. Lastly, I will show you the pros and cons of Adobe Acrobat and PDFelement and reveal my pick.
Key features
Let’s compare Adobe Acrobat and PDFelement based on their key features!
Adobe Acrobat’s features
PDF editor

The Adobe PDF Library has solid tools to edit your PDFs. On the left sidebar, you can easily to the files that you have worked on or read.
If you click the “All tools” tab, you can access Adobe Acrobat’s tools to edit your PDF. Also, if you click on any part of your PDF, you can highlight, underline, strikethrough, or copy text. Furthermore, it has a moveable sidebar that allows you to draw, fill forms, etc.

Adobe Acrobat allows you to add or remove text from a PDF document. Nevertheless, if you want to move some text or images to a different page, Adobe Acrobat does not let you drag and drop the text or image elements. I found this strange, as all the advanced PDF editors have such a drag-and-drop feature.

On the other hand, Adobe Acrobat does a great job when it comes to editing text in a scanned image. It performs an optical character recognition, and after, it allows you to insert, change, or remove the recognized text. This feature works great even in the case of old printed documents.
Overall, you can easily find all the tools you need when editing your PDFs.
Annotate PDF documents

As mentioned, Adobe Acrobat has some useful annotating features like highlighting, underlining, or copying text. It also allows you to add comments, text fields, sticky notes, or shapes.
These are really useful tools when reviewing legal documents for example. But honestly, I miss the stickers. They would make the review process even more efficient and visually appealing.
Organizing PDFs

Adobe Acrobat allows you to insert, replace, extract, rotate, split, and remove pages. While this is not an advanced PDF functionality, it is still nice that you can organize your PDFs smoothly.
You can drag and drop page thumbnails to order them in the way you want them. For example, you can easily drag a Word file into the thumbnail images of your PDF document, and Acrobat is capable of converting it into PDF format, so you can smoothly insert it into the existing PDF pages.
The one thing I did not like here is that the free version does not include even the basic PDF organization features.
PDF form filling and signatures

Just click the “Fill & Sign” tool, and you will have access to all the tools for filing PDF forms and signing documents. By enabling PDF form filling, you can complete form filling by clicking a text field and typing or inserting a text box.

Moreover, if you hit the “Fill & Sign” button in the toolbar, you can quickly draw or type your signature and place it on the form.
Ultimately, Adobe Acrobat has easy-to-use form-filling and signature features.
Encrypt and share

With Adobe Acrobat, you can protect your PDF files with passwords. It is also great that you can limit access to certain features like printing or editing. To use the password protection, click on the “All tools” tab and hit “Protect a PDF.” This way, you can add a password to your PDF files.

Furthermore, you can share PDF documents directly from Adobe Acrobat or after exporting them. You can create a public link to the PDF file or send it as an email attachment through your email app.
AI assistant

Adobe Acrobat also has an AI assistant feature for $4.99 per month if you have a paid plan. It is a useful tool to get quick answers about your PDFs, summarize content, and digest documents faster.

The summary feature works great; Adobe Acrobat creates a summary with one click that pulls key points from your document. It also allows you to chat with multiple documents, so you can find crucial information faster.
However, I have experienced these AI assistant features being limited.
PDFelement’s Features
Let’s dive into PDFelement’s key features!
PDF Editing

On the home page, you can quickly access some tools to edit your PDF, add text, crop or translate your page, or use the optical character recognition (OCR) tool. To use all the PDF editing features, click on edit in the top toolbar, and you will find all the tools you need here.
Using this function, you can add, delete, move, and resize all the elements of the page. PDFelement supports drag-and-drop, so you can move text boxes, pictures, and forms all around your pages.
Whenever you want to make a change or add new text, you can further customize the parameters on the right sidebar. You can change the fonts, sizes, colors, spacing, and more.

With PDFelement Pro, you can add and edit pictures as well. Just go to the image tab on the top toolbar, and you can add or drag and drop a picture.
Once it is on your page, you can move, resize, and perform different actions, such as rotating.
Ultimately, I discovered during my Wondershare PDFelement review that you can edit PDFs easily, and the tools are quite intuitive.
PDF reader

PDFelement also has great PDF reading features, which are included in the free trial version. It provides different views like a single-page, 2-page, 4-page spread, and split views.
You can choose from dark and light modes, which makes it easier to read PDF documents and protect your eyes. It is especially useful if you work on PDF files a lot.
Annotate PDFs

If you hit on the comment, you can access all the relevant annotation tools to easily review documents. You can leave comments, highlight text, or add stamps where others can sign the documents.
It’s also great that PDFelement offers numerous options to customize these annotations further. For example, you can choose from multiple colors when adding a note. Although this is not a monumental feature, I like that they also pay close attention to these small things.
Forms and signing tools
With PDFelement, you create fillable forms. When I tested the PDF forms, I found one really practical thing. This is the “Calculate Order” function.
Using this PDF tool, you can give the sum of the other two fields, so it essentially works like a very simple Excel. I also noticed that the PDF forms’ tools are straightforward and intuitive.
As mentioned, you can sign PDFs using PDFelement. You can create your digital signature with a few clicks and smoothly sign documents.
Organize PDFs

Furthermore, it is super easy to reorganize your PDF pages. Click on the Organize tab at the top, and you can delete, insert, and change the order of the pages.
There are also other options like rotating, sizing, and cropping your PDF so you can make the pages look exactly like they fit you.
PDF Protection

Security is crucial when deciding between PDF editors. And during my Wondershare PDFelement review, it passed the test.
Using PDFelement, you can give an open password and a permission password to your PDF files.
If choosing the open passwords, you have to choose a password that must be entered each time you enter a PDF file. On the other hand, you can set a permission password to allow others to edit and print the PDFs.
Converting PDFs into other formats
PDFelement can convert PDFs into many different formats. Just click the “Convert, select a format you want to convert your PDF file, and that is is.
It supports many file formats, including Microsoft Word, Excel, image, and Epub.
AI tools

Lastly, I tested the AI tools during my Wondershare PDFelement review. Using the AI assistant feature, can ask questions about a PDF file, request a summary, and more.
Essentially, it helps you manage your PDFs with high efficiency and create content for your PDFs. I did not have to wait too long for the output, which is also a good point. Moreover, I experienced high accuracy when the AI assistant provided me with the answers.
Compared to other PDF editors on the market, PDFelement has solid PDF tools.
My experience
Now, let’s see my experience with both PDF apps!
My experience with Adobe Acrobat

Adobe Acrobat has massive PDF editing features. However, it comes with a price, as you can access these features only with paid plans. With the Adobe Pro License, you can easily organize, edit, and convert PDFs.
It has a clean user interface, and you can access it on Windows, Mac, iOS, Android, and online. The only issue that comes up occasionally is that it is quite slow when opening larger PDF files.
Ultimately, I had a positive experience with Adobe Acrobat. Using the Adobe Pro License is ideal for all your PDF needs.
My experience with PDFelement

PDFelement is an easy-to-use PDF editor overall. Many times, I worked with longer PDF files in parallel, but I did not experience any performance issues, which is quite common with many PDF editors.
It is also great that they launch new features regularly, so they keep up with the latest changes in the PDF and software space.
PDFelement has a user-friendly interface where you can easily find and use all the tools you need. Besides navigating smoothly among its PDF tools, I also appreciated the PDF reading functionality.
It is great that you can choose from different themes and use many view options depending on what PDF document you read.
Overall, I had a very positive experience with PDFelement; it offered great value when managing my PDF files.
Pricing
In the next round of the Adobe Acrobat vs PDFelement battle, let’s check their pricing!
Adobe Acrobat’s pricing

Adobe Acrobat has three plans, and you can add the AI Assistant feature for $4.99 per month. Also, the prices are different for individuals, teams, and students & teachers. As the prices vary based on whether you buy it as an individual or team member, let’s focus on the features included in the plans.
The free plan is called Adobe Reader. This plan lets you view, print, share, and add comments to your PDF files.
The Acrobat Standard also includes PDF editor features, so you can edit text and images. You can sign, send, or create digital forms and add your signatures if opting for the Acrobat Standard plan.
Essentially, this plan has all the basic and some advanced features to effectively edit PDFs. It costs $155.88/year/user for individuals and $179.88/year/license for businesses.

The Acrobat Pro plan includes all the PDF features you need. With this plan, you can send bulk e-signature requests, turn scanned documents into editable, searchable PDFs, compare two versions, and add branding.
You can get the Acrobat Pro for $239.88/year if you purchase it as an individual. The business license is $287.88/year per license for businesses. If you are a student or a teacher, you can get discounts on the Acrobat Pro plan.
The yearly fee of the AI assistant is $59.88 per user, and it is the same for individuals and businesses.
When taking a look at the paid plans of Adobe Acrobat, you will quickly realize that the price is much higher than that of some of its competitors.
PDFelement’s pricing
PDFelement pricing for individuals looks like this:

You can get the yearly plan for $79.99 per user for a single platform. A cross-platform individual plan is $89.99 per user yearly, and you can use PDFelement on various platforms.
The yearly plan, regardless of whether you buy it for a single or cross-platform, includes no watermark, 1-year access to all features, 1-year of PDFelement updates, and Free 20GB PDFelement Cloud storage. These plans also cover free customer support.
In addition to the yearly plan, you can purchase a 2-year plan for $109.99 for a single platform and for $119.99 for cross-platform. With the 2-year plan, you can get the latest version of PDFelement for 2 years, 2-year access to all features, and 100GB PDFelement Cloud storage.
You can also buy the perpetual license, which costs a one-time fee of $129.99. With the perpetual license, you get access to all features, as well as 20GB of PDFelement Cloud storage. However, if there are updates in the future for the next versions, you need to pay to get all the new features.
For businesses, PDFelement offers the following plans:

The annual plan for one user is $109.9, while the lifetime license is $139. If you want to purchase PDFelement for more than 10 users, I recommend reaching out to them, as they may give you volume discounts.
Based on a common practice in the PDF editor space, if you want to use the AI tools without limits, you need to buy it for $3.99 / month. There are also discounts for students.
Overall, PDFelement is among the cheaper PDF editors. Just to give you an example, Adobe Acrobat’s yearly plan is $239, while Nitro offers its Pro plan for €199.78. As you can see, they are significantly more expensive than PDFelement.
Adobe Acrobat’s pros and cons
Let’s see the pros and cons I discovered after the PDFelement vs Adobe Acrobat review.

Adobe Acrobat’s pros
First, Adobe Acrobat offers many tools to manipulate, annotate, and edit PDFs. The Acrobat Pro should fulfill all your PDF needs.
Secondly, it has easy-to-use PDF signing and form-filling features. It is smooth to add your signatures or fill out forms.
Lastly, Adobe Acrobat provides cloud storage for your documents, so you can access them from any device.
Adobe Acrobat’s cons
I have two issues with Adobe Acrobat.
Honestly, Adobe is an expensive tool compared to other PDF tools. This should not be a huge problem if it had a decent free version. Nonetheless, Adobe Acrobat Reader has limited features, and it is only ideal for reading PDFs.
Furthermore, Adobe Acrobat was quite slow for me, particularly if I opened a large PDF file. At first, I believed it was just me, but after reading several reviews, many users experienced the same.
PDFelement’s pros and cons
After my PDFelement review, I found these pros and cons you should know about this PDF editor.

PDFelement’s pros
PDFelement is a super easy PDF editor. Using it, you can edit and create PDFs quickly and smoothly.
Also, PDFelement is cheap. The $79.99 is a reasonable price for the value it offers, and it provides multi-platform support as well.
In addition, the PDF reading tools are outstanding. You can choose from different view options and two themes.
PDF document editing is very simple, and you can choose from numerous formatting options.
PDFelement’s cons
I did not find any issues with the PDF editor or its functionality. Nevertheless, I identified one issue during my Wondershare PDFelement review based on user reports.
Some users reported that after they buy a lifetime license, there are pop-ups after some months to upgrade their plan. While I did not experience this problem, it may be worth noting.
There were also reports regarding the fact that AI tools are not included in the paid plans, and you need to pay if you upgrade your lifetime license. Nevertheless, these are the same with almost all the PDF editors on the market, so I did not want to flag this out.
Related articles:
- The 7 Best Adobe Acrobat Alternatives: 30+ PDF Editors Tested
- Adobe Acrobat Vs PDF Expert: A Honest Comparison (2025)
- My Honest Wondershare PDFelement Review (2025)
- Adobe Acrobat Review: What Nobody Tells You (2025)
- PDF Expert vs PDFelement: A Honest Comparison (2025)
- The 8 Best PDF Editors In 2025 | 30+ Personally Tested PDF Tools
My recommendation: PDFelement vs Adobe Acrobat
After my PDFelement vs Adobe Acrobat research, I discovered that both PDF tools have powerful PDF features. While Adobe Acrobat is still a solid choice for PDF editing, considering its pricing model, my pick is PDFelement. PDFelement offers the same value for less money and has more advanced AI tools.
Frequently asked questions
What is better than PDFelement?
I think PDFelement is one of the best five PDF editors. If I need to recommend an alternative to PDFelement, you should take a look at UPDF, Foxit, or Nitro.
Which PDF reader is better than Adobe?
If you want to try some Adobe Acrobat alternatives, check out these PDF editors:
- UPDF: One of my favorite PDF editors with advanced AI features and budget-friendly pricing.
- PDF Expert: An ideal option for Mac and iPhone users who read a lot of PDFs.
- Foxit: A fast PDF editor with an intuitive user interface for an affordable price.
- Nitro: A feature-rich PDF editor with a strong focus on PDF editing.
- EaseUS PDF: An affordable PC-only PDF editor.
- PDFgear: A free and versatile PDF editor.
- PDF AI: A PDF editor with massive AI features.
What is the best PDF editor?
I think the best PDF editors are Foxit and UPDF. However, PDFelement is also among my top five PDF tools.
Disclosure: I only recommend products I would use myself and all opinions expressed here are our own. This post may contain affiliate links that at no additional cost to you, I may earn a small commission. Read the full privacy policy here.

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